"A triumph- a genuinely new story, a genuinely new form."* r:. . .................-...........:.:.....". .- ....... . . ....... ..... ...... ;:.; :: :.: :: r:r: ::: :I :f: Ifi'fm 1i::ìi itW; . : :I {:t<L ;"<."+,, t fl ^. -, .: " =>>.:: .' ..:: :;.:: .;.:..;-: (:;::=: . .: ...::..:0...... .."'..:: .:;.': :. . . . . . :.-'.".' . .... . {.:'::: ::;":. :: :';': .:'::. :: ; J I J > ":. "-;:., r. . ') :ì :;,,,r,.: :,; :, '!Jl:: ,':.' Î. I % ..:..:.. ::::: ?::;:;1 :: _. . b . I _ I :, ! :.::..;..'!' ..;.; _.. ..- .....x,":.,.:..: .......:, ;t- . ill 'H'ËÏ,t$,i'4! P : ;itti1 i ......... . ..... . '.. . . . ..... H ..>>:o ?.; ... . . . .1: i: m w-: :. : ,. .:.; ;.h.:;.':::.:':..... .. J THE LAST SAMURAI "A l11ultilingual, l11ultistoried, l11yriad-l11inded novel... funny and tragic and intriguing and over the top and perfectly controlled. "-*A.S. Byatt, The New Yorker "The find of the season." -Sven Birkerts, The Boston Globe "A brilliant debut novel... an extraordinarily original mind; she is a joy to read. " - The Washington Post Book World "One of the outstanding first novels of 2000... a wonderfully drawn portrait of the complicated relationship between a mother and her brJlian t young son. " - The Seattle Times A "Book Sense 76" pick 'S <:: n s eo talk miramax , 'ooks Available wherever books are sold 30 THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 4, 2000 searcher, and a primatologIst, and their warm, ac- cessible manners make their accomplishments seem all the more inspiring. Apted travels to his subjects' natural surroundings, catching them at home, in a rain forest, or in an impoverished vil- lage, and then lets the camera do the work of dis- covering their motivations. He's an unobtrusive director (a skill he honed while working on his ac- claimed "7-Up" series), and his eclectic intelligence brings out the boundless curiosity that drives these intrepid thinkers.-B.D. (Cinema Village.) MEET THE PARENTS Jay Roach moves on from the campy delights of the Austin Powers series to direct this smoothly acted comedy of errors. Ben Stiller plays a modern man charged with a Victorian task: asking his girl- friend's father for permission to marry his daugh- ter. With a calamitous surname ("pronounced just like it's spelled, F-O-C-K-E-R") and a faintly hi- larious profession (male nurse), Stiller seems like a sitting duck for the secretive, overprotective fa- ther, played by Robert De Niro. Stiller grovels, De Niro growls, and the girls (Blythe Danner and Teri Polo) watch from the sidelines. This is dumbed-up comedy: there are just enough unexpected mo- ments to redeem all the easy pleasures of the slap- stick.-M.A. (Battery Park L6, First & 62nd Cin- emas, 42nd Street E Walk, Kips Bay Theatre, Lincoln Square, 19th Street East 6, Orpheum VII, and Village Theatre VII.) MEN OF HONOR Robert De Niro's bizarre performance as a choleric Navy diver-spasmodic body movement and an out-of-the-swamp Southern accent-is the only real life in this exceptionally square military bi- ography. An earnest Cuba Gooding, Jr., plays the real-life hero Carl Brashear, who overcame racist hazing to become the Navy's first black master diver in the nineteen-fifties. De Niro is the instruc- tor who initially tries to discourage Brashear and then becomes his champion. Familiar as it may be, the story has stirring moments, although the screenwriter, Scott Marshall Smith, and the director, George Tillman, Jr., do their best to kill them. Each scene shows the hero facing some Challenge, which he sternly Confronts and then Overcomes.-D.D. (11/20/00) (Battery Park 16, Chelsea West, Empire 25, Murray Hill Cinemas, Park & 86th Street Cin- emas, 64th and 2nd, 62nd & Broadway, Village East Cinemas, and Ziegfeld.) ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER A skillfut unnerving documentary that re-creates the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes by Pales- tinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Even today, the ironies are painful to contemplate. The Germans, eager to dispel remaining doubts about the peaceable character of the "New Ger- many," kept security guards away from the Olym- pic Village and tried to persuade the Palestini- ans that the killing of Jews on German soil should not happen again. Later, at an airport near Mu- nich, the local police performed with an inepti- tude almost hard to believe. The movie, narrated by Michael Douglas, consists of period television footage, a few staged episodes, and interviews wIth participants, including the sole surviving ter- rorist and some very sheepish German officials. The massacre is not given sufficient historical con- text, but as a moment-by-moment report of a hor- rifying event the movie is both instructive and deeply upsetting. Directed by Kevin Macdonald. Produced by Arthur Cohn.-D.D. (Film Forum.) PAY IT FORWARD An embarrassingly ham-handed fable about doing good deeds, but worth seeing for Helen Hunt's first-rate performance as an alcoholic Las Vegas cocktail waitress and single mother-a woman with lousy judgment who wants to do the nght thing but doesn't know how. As a classroom ex- ercise, her son Trevor (Haley Joel Osment) de- vises the scheme of "pay it forward" -performing a gratuitous act of kindness for three people and then insisting that they do the same for three others. Trevor helps strangers, but, playing Cupid, he's more eager to help his mother meet his teacher (Kevin Spacey). It's a rum role for Spacey, who sacrifices his aura of malevolence by deliver- ing an unconvincing, weepy confession fit for a TV movie. Written by Leslie Dixon, from Cather- ine Ryan Hyde's novel, and directed by Mimi Leder.-D.D. (11/6/00) (Empire 25, Lincoln Square, Murray Hill Cinemas, 19th Street East 6, Orpheum VII, Village East Cinemas, and Village Theatre VII.) QUILLS Philip Kaufman turns eagerly back to sex, a topic that he has merely brushed against in the years since "Henry and June." Geoffrey Rush plays the Marquis de Sade, imprisoned in a lunatic asylum but determined to continue writing-and, if pos- sible, publishing-his scurrilous works. He is be- friended and, for a while, tolerated by the Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), the priest in charge; the regime darkens with the arrival of Dr. Royer- Collard (Michael Caine), who is under orders to block de Sade's creative juices. Add the ripe pres- ence of a willing laundress (Kate Winslet), who smuggles out the manuscripts. and the stage is set: what for, it is never quite clear. The movie de- clines into a drab, cloistered hymn to freedom of speech, and Kaufman's directing of period frenzy is surprisingly lumpen; rising above it is Rush, alternately cooing and blustery, and al- most certainly preferable to the real Marquis. Look out for the scene where he writes his elegant filth on the clothes he is wearing. With any luck, this will start a trend.-A.L. (11/27/00) (Angelika Film Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.) .....'.- . I, ....r'. ;1lf'; -l -". ' i "" , '. ..w. \. ,.....).. , :" t- - - ;,. I .> , , . .< ". >y :... }.Ç:, " '-' - " t' .'. \i.J,. "".. ,..... r "'J'---;. '.'. I I ' j ' ,..." I .' ,.,- ."' " . ." 1 Ù' S'. , .. , I .... .':! . .:'Ï,!_::f" ,_ '-:':.."': r. lr .... -' f. J;\ "-' Henry Thomas in ':A Good Baby. " RED PLANET SO much for space as the final frontier. In the sec- ond voyage to Mars launched by Hollyv/ood this year. Val Kilmer and an indistinguishable cast of others wander around the deserts of J ordan- sorry, Mars-in an attempt to walk off a nasty case of déjà VUe Less wittY than" Mission to Mars," the film leans heavily on space-movie clichés, but, happily, the token crew member who pontificates about the space-time continuum gets knocked off first.-M.A. (Astor Plaza, Battery Park 16, L.LJ Chelsea Cinemas, 84th Street Sixplex, First & 62nd Cinemas, Kips Bay Theatre, Orpheum VII, and Union Square.) ;: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM Õ Darren Aronofsky's new film stars Ellen Burstyn 8 as Sara Goldfarb, a Brighton Beach widow who ð